In a fun, lively conversation with the comedian extraordinaire, Joanna Brooks discusses the fears, tensions, and survivalist instinct of Mormons of today. And Jon Stewart offers some advice on her "baby" religion growing up.

Mitt Romney bows his head in prayer in Elko, Nevada while on the presidential campaign trail. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Mitt Romney is threatening to disturb the American compromise with Mormonism.

Nineteenth-century observers were largely indifferent to the new religion Joseph Smith founded in 1830. Most dismissed his claims about angels and gold plates as just another example of American gullibility. “Had we not seen in our own days similar impostures practiced with success,” yawned one Illinois contemporary, “[Mormonism] would have excited our special wonder; as it is, nothing excites surprise.” But in Missouri and Illinois local tensions erupted in violence, and national concern intensified when Brigham Young — relatively safe in the refuge of Utah — announced a system of plural marriage in 1852.

How often is the substance of a report informed or clouded or steered by the headlines that precede it?

Today’s Washington Post may be a fine illustration of this question. Take a look at the four headlines written for a single article by Philip Rucker. A reader can get a very different sense of Mitt Romney and the presidential candidate’s response last night to recent comments about his Mormon faith made by an Evangelical Christian pastor of a megachurch in Dallas.

So, a bit of context with a compare and contrast of each headline in its context. The lede for Sunday’s print edition: